


Noxious Kinda Love

by gxtham (zesulin), THE JUNKER (jilltheripper)



Series: A Hero and A Human Hand Grenade [1]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman (Movies - Nolan) RPF, Batman - All Media Types, The Dark Knight (2008)
Genre: 1 year post-TDK, Angst, Dubious Science, Hurt/Comfort, Joker is lowkey gq, M/M, Recovery, Redemption, Secondary Plot, Slow Burn, backstories revealed, fluff later, institutionalization cw, sexy scenes later, subject to re-titling at some point!, uncomfortable/intimidating situations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8503255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zesulin/pseuds/gxtham, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilltheripper/pseuds/THE%20JUNKER
Summary: "The man had become all but a recluse. What need was there for Russian ballerinas and yachts when there was no reason to cover for himself? Nothing to cover, for that manner. The tabloids had eaten it up: Billionaire Playboy Loses Friends, Mind."It’s been a year since Bruce Wayne put the Batman to bed for good; a year since Harvey Dent’s death, since Rachel, since the Joker. In his desperation to heal from his friends’ deaths, his wounds have been hastily sewn, bandaged over, and forgotten about. With the commissioner watching over Gotham and a famous professor doing philanthropic work, Bruce is sure the city doesn’t need him. But now, with a new threat appearing in Gotham, an old foe is his only ally, and an unthinkable bond is formed between a hero and a human hand grenade.





	1. The Man Who Sold the World

**Author's Note:**

> Co-written by myself and my boyfriend. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it! asdfghjkl it's gonna be so gay you guys

_“The Gotham PD reports that the vigilante known as ‘Batman’ is still at large after allegedly murdering Detective Michael Wuertz, as well as four other civilians, and critically injuring Salvatore Maroni, who was acquitted earlier this year in the District Attorney's case against the Falcone crime family,”_ the television said. The channel was turned to GCN with Rebecca Leibowitz and Anthony Bloomer. _“Anyone who has information on the whereabouts of the Batman is encouraged to come forward. Commissioner James Gordon has offered a reward of one-point-five thousand dollars per any tip that leads to significant breakthroughs in this investigation.”_

 _“The Gotham PD have also come forward with a statement saying that the Batman should be considered armed and dangerous, and that if you see him out and about, forget about confronting him and call the police right away,”_ Anthony added.

“Can we shut this crap off?”

The nurse delivering his pain meds didn’t look up at him when he said it; she just swept through his room, gathering the wastebin and dirty laundry from beside his and his roommate’s hospital beds, and walked back out again without a word.

The old man in the next bed over had fallen asleep watching the damn news again. It was bad enough hearing them talk about some bullshit expose on how cell phones cause cancer, but even worse when they started talking about him. And God knew, every couple hours, like clockwork, his story would pop up again, and the idiot next to him would ask, “Hey, ain’t that you?” again.

And if his boy asked what meeting Batman was like one more time, he’d throw the kid off a pier.

“Hello?” he called out, growing angry. “Can I get someone to change the channel over here?”

Almost immediately, he felt someone enter the room, though his bed was angled away from the door. Their footsteps were silent, and the silence was cold, but he wasn’t stupid—over the years, he’d developed something of a sixth sense for dangerous people. Too bad it hadn’t served him too well with the Joker.

“Who’s there?”

The shaft of a cane reached out from behind his bed and depressed a button on the front of the television, turning it off. “So sorry about that, Mr. Maroni,” said a man’s voice. It was low and calm, but somehow also incredibly amused at the current state of affairs. _That_ pissed him off—with Dent dead and the Joker locked up in the looney bin, who did this asshole think he was, laughing at Sal Maroni?

Sal sat up a little straighter and turned. When he saw the man’s face, his shoulders relaxed. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Feeling a little jumpy, Mr. Maroni?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Sal watched as the other man rounded his hospital bed and pulled up a chair. The man set his cane aside and reached for Sal’s wrist, taking his pulse before beginning to inspect his plaster casts. After a moment, Maroni found the silence was too much; it made him nervous. Yelling was fine—he could do yelling. He was Italian, after all. Silence, though…. “Hey, you think I could get a different room? I’m not exactly the sharing type.”

“Oh,” said the man, “we’ll change that.”

The blood in Maroni’s extremities froze. He’d been in the mob long enough to know when a threat was being made.

“You’re very wealthy, aren’t you, Mr. Maroni?”

“Wealthy enough to be here, so you should know.”

The man stopped pretending to fuss over Sal’s bandages and sat back in the chair, tilting his head thoughtfully. After a long, tense moment of silence, he said, “I’m about to take on an endeavor I think you would appreciate, Mr. Maroni. My only obstacle, so far, has been … well, to put it frankly, insufficient funds. But if you were to—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You wanna open the bakery, restaurant, _whatever_ your pop always wanted, but you don’t wanna deal with the nitty-gritty, so you want me to give you, what, a hundred K?” Maroni was nodding, teeth bared, laughing at the man. “Do I look like a—”

“No.”

The cane fell heavily across Maroni’s chest, temporarily knocking the air out of him. He could feel the strength behind the impact, and could tell that the man was holding back; even so, he cried out and rubbed his chest.

“No,” the man repeated. “That television program you were watching … they mentioned the Batman.”

“So what? You crazy….” Maroni trailed off, rubbing his chest.

“Surely you remember when the Joker held this city by the throat over the identity of the Caped Crusader. It was a fine start, but he was weak—his disorder, the chaos he relished, made him weak. I propose we finish the job—unmask the Batman and end him.” The man paused, and spread his hands, palms upward. “We’ll be hailed as heroes, and you can finally get back to your business.”

Maroni scoffed, though his eyes darted from the man to the television, unsure of his current position. “Yeah, well, the last time someone offered to help me with that, it didn’t work out too good for anyone.”

The man’s voice became terse. “I told you, the Joker was weak. What he did, he did for his own amusement. But he and I have very different motivations, I’m sure you’ll find.” After a pause, he added, “And there’s one more thing separating myself from the Joker.”

Again, Maroni scoffed, skeptical. “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

The man simply smiled and replied, “I’m not asking for a cut of your profits. Your contribution will suffice.”

 

# ♣♣♣

 

The chill November air bit against Bruce’s sweat-slicked skin as he came to a stop in front of the new Wayne Manor, breath coming in puffs of vapor that swirled in the air around him, like the fingers of ghosts in the early morning mist. It was still dark, barely past four—Bruce had already been up for several hours; unable to sleep, he had risen, chasing off the more tangible phantoms of his past. Activity drowned them out—the methodical intake and exhale of breath, feet against stone, aching muscles.

In the intervening months since Dent had died and Batman had been defamed, the sole Wayne had found it hard to re-adjust to being something other than, well … his alter ego. Putting his double life to bed had meant no reason to stay up so late, nor to maintain his playboy attitude. In the wake of all that had happened, even thinking of putting the Batsuit on left a bad taste in his mouth.

And so, despite Alfred’s insistence, the man had become all but a recluse. What need was there for Russian ballerinas and yachts when there was no reason to cover for himself? Nothing to cover, for that matter. The tabloids had eaten it up: _Billionaire Playboy Loses Friends, Mind._

Bruce pushed his hair back as he made his way up to the manor, crossing his arms tightly over his chest; he drew the sleeves of his shirt over his hands as he suppressed a shiver. Activity made it harder for unwanted thoughts to worm their way in, and waking early kept him on his toes. He almost liked it. Almost. Rachel would have been proud of him.

 _No_ , he corrected himself. _She wasn’t even proud of Batman. Not even in the very end._ The thought made his stomach turn, the back of his throat threatening to close and starting to burn like acid. It had been a year—he had been counting. A gale of icy air hit him as he drew close to the house, and it blew through him and chilled him to the very bone.

“Back from your run, I see,” Alfred quipped as the heavy oaken door swung open, bringing with it the fall chill.

The butler seemed nonplussed by the weather, but his lips pursed upon seeing the young master’s face. It was a familiar expression—brows drawn together, eyes far away, as if in another world. He folded his hands behind his back, watching as Bruce shed his shoes and gloves, before slipping into his house shoes. At least he wasn’t tracking in mud.

“I made breakfast already. You ought to eat something before I put it away.”

But the man was already disappearing upstairs into his newly rebuilt rooms, and Alfred decided it would be best to leave it be for now.

 

The new manor nearly matched the original to a T; even the original molding had been emulated--crown, carved in a deep mahogany. It sharply contrasted the maple that made up the spidery vaulted arches in the ceiling. In later hours, the sun would filter through the manor’s circular windows, casting shadows across the walls…. Now, in the darkness, they were strange and indifferent. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall was all too reminiscent of his childhood—early mornings when he would tip-toe into his parents’ room, seeking comfort after a nightmare. Despite the great pains Bruce had taken, despite the millions and millions put into rebuilding, it was still a pale echo of the original. It felt fake, cheap—these walls had never held the Wayne family, only its sole, lonely heir.

Bruce all but shuffled through the halls to his room, barely paying any mind to his surroundings; his floor was littered with laundry, books and miscellanea that he hadn’t bothered with. This room, Alfred usually left alone—although Bruce certainly didn’t complain when he came home to find his suits neatly pressed and folded in his drawers, socks married and in their proper places. It had been some time since Alfred had last been through, though.

Mindlessly, the Wayne heir stripped of his running gear, and toed off his shoes. He wadded the clothes into a ball and tossed them in the general direction of the rest of his clothes, before flicking on the TV and grabbing a towel, making for the bathroom.

The screen came to life, the little GCN logo glaring red in the corner of the screen. On camera were two chairs, a table, potted plants, and a view of the Gotham skyline; sat there, Rebecca Leibowitz laughed and tossed her perfectly-coiffed auburn hair while she interviewed a man labeled on-screen as _Prof. Hugo Strange, Gotham State Uni._ It wasn’t out of the ordinary for there to be interviews on the station, but something about the man on the screen gave him pause.

Professor Strange was, at least from the shoulders, up, a very dignified—albeit meek-looking—older man. He was balding, and what hair he did have was gray, with a connecting beard and mustache; his eyes were mostly obscured by a pair of ridiculous Coke-bottle glasses, and his brows remained mostly stationary, ruining any chance of reading his emotions. From the neck, down, however, he was built like a much younger man, tall and thick and sturdy like a Marine. His entire look was a bit much to take in, but he didn’t seem as strange as his name and appearance would suggest; on the contrary, he seemed to be getting along famously with Rebecca Leibowitz.

_“That is just incredible, Professor. Now, you mentioned that teaching at the university is just one of your jobs, now. Can you tell us a bit about what else you do?”_

_“I’d be happy to, Rebecca. You see, with our prisons filling up and the deplorable conditions at Arkham Asylum, I started to ask myself, ‘Who can be trusted to house the criminal elite and the insane when they are injured?’ Surely not a hospital, in or out of their facilities, where they could be a threat to others--and so few mental institutions have suitable equipment for mortal or otherwise intense injury. So, I developed my institution, and I must say, it has found tremendous success.”_

_“You mentioned that you found the conditions at Arkham Asylum unacceptable. Is your institution founded on different principles?”_

_“Oh, absolutely, Rebecca. The purpose of Arkham Asylum, historically, has been to contain and to punish. I don’t believe in that. I believe in rehabilitation. Just as one would heal a broken bone—and, at the moment, our medical department is the only one we can fund at my ‘rest home’—the process of healing the mind can be long and involved. My hope is that, someday soon, we will raise the money to extend our endeavors.”_ Professor Strange reclined in his seat comfortably.

Rebecca looked impressed, and the audience applauded. _“That certainly is ambitious, Professor. And we’ve all heard stories of prisons doing that very successfully. But what about the more extreme personalities? Do you think you could rehabilitate, say, Batman?”_

This drew laughter from the audience, but Strange seemed less amused. His smiled faded and he straightened up where he sat, and his tone became more serious. _“You know, Rebecca ... the simple fact is that extreme personalities cannot be controlled or reasoned with. I don’t doubt that I could treat the Batman. Could I rehabilitate him? I’m not sure. But I could certainly provide a safe, clean place for him to live out what remains of his life.”_

_“You specialize in criminal profiling, among other things. Do you think you could analyze the Batman’s mind, find out what makes him tick?”_

At this, Strange chuckled. _“I wager that I could. In fact, I’d be happy to do so on your program some time—”_

Bruce scowled to himself, about to turn off the television. There was a warm shower waiting for him in the other room, and he had been standing around long enough.

Suddenly, just as he was about to get up, the screen flashed. Professor Strange and Rebecca Leibowitz were replaced by a silent, startling graphic: _BREAKING NEWS_ , it said, catching his attention. The graphic cut to live feed from one of the station’s helicopters, circling overhead as police surrounded a multi-story warehouse at the edge of town. It had recently rained and the helicopters’ searchlights reflected off the roof of the warehouse and the pavement in a way that made visibility very poor.

Another female reporter appeared in a small box in the corner of the live footage, her voice hurried: _“Breaking news from downtown Gotham tonight: reports of mysterious activity near a former gang-owned warehouse led to the discovery of several tons of live explosive and what appear to be hostages. Police have been unable to enter the warehouse for fear of setting off the bombs, leaving the hostages trapped until a bomb squad arrives on-scene. It is unknown whether the explosives are rigged to go off at this time.”_

Bruce froze, feeling a tight numbness spread through his chest. It couldn’t be—

The live reporter was handed something across her desk, and she looked it over once before taking a deep breath, clearly overwhelmed. _“Reports are coming in, now, that the Joker is at large and possibly involved with the warehouse incident. After a crime spree last year, the terrorist known only as ‘the Joker’ was committed to Arkham Asylum under tight lockdown. Earlier this evening, orderlies in his ward reported that he had disappeared along with four other patients in the same ward. They are considered, at this time, to be part of a conspiracy to escape….”_ The image of the abandoned Batsuit, tucked away in the underground vault, flashed through his mind, along with a slash of a ruby smile—one that he would never forget.

The image of the warehouse continued to pan, the same footage being looped as more facts were given and repeated. The reporter went on to say something about the police commissioner making a statement, but Bruce heard none of it. Anxiety was electric through his veins, his heart fluttering in his chest. The sun was still rising; the Joker knew he only operated at night. No doubt, he’d soon send a video of some sort to the news station to act as a taunt to the Batman.

In his mind, the choice was clear. It would be selfish to let the people of Gotham suffer—and he was a symbol, not a man. A symbol could rise from the dead as it needed—come to save a city in peril, even if he was an anathema to those in it.

But … the commissioner was capable of diffusing the situation. Wasn’t he? He’d proven many times since the Joker that he could handle the city without the help of some freak in a bat costume. And after all that had happened … did he dare? Pinching the bridge of his nose, Bruce realized he was still halfway to the bathroom, and turned away from the television.

He turned the shower on high heat and stripped down. Despite this being the master suite, with plenty of room for a luxurious shower, he’d opted for something a little more compact. It was just tile and glass walls, big enough for a few people to stand in, but no more. He shut the door, drowning out the sound of the police sirens on the TV, and stepped under the scalding spray.

Bruce relished in the heat, closing his eyes as the water poured over his skin, leaving angry, red splotches in its wake. Such were his habits; like running, the heat gave pain a tangible form, left evidence on his body. In his days as the Batman, it had taken form as deep, purple and yellow bruises, slashes of crimson where his skin had been broken. Since he had put his double life to bed, it had healed, and scars at formed—pale and strange against freckled skin. Now, under the showerhead, they stood out more than ever as it became blotched and red—a thick one on his upper arm, where he had been bitten by a dog; another from where a bullet had grazed him. Yet another stood out just beneath his ribs, invisible in the day to day, discernible only under the heat, where the Joker had kicked him with the blade in his boot, nearly a year ago. He had been protecting Gotham. Protecting _Rachel_.

He was constantly caught between remembering her, for their friendship's sake, and pushing thoughts of her to the back of his mind. It still hurt, even a year later—they could have…. No.

Bruce turned the dial to cold as he scrubbed at his face, prickling, numb pins and needles all over. _He_ was back, wreaking havoc on the city, freshly escaped from Arkham. Sure, the commissioner may be able to smooth things over with this particular incident, but what about the next? Or any others that followed? What would he do then? There was only so much Jim could do as commissioner, only so far that the hand of the law could reach without public outcry—even if it meant the safety of everyone. From the back of his mind, a treacherous voice whispered, _Rachel would want you to._

Even as Bruce rinsed out his hair and mulled the thought over, mentally tearing up sutures, he knew it to be true. Some places, the hurt had never healed. Rachel never would have allowed for inaction; even if she didn’t think of him like she did Harvey, even if he was no White Knight. Harvey Dent was gone now, and all Gotham had now was its Dark Knight—its very own ace in the hole. Bruce reached for the tap, turning it all the way to the right, cutting off the water supply. He stepped out of the foggy glass chamber, and toweled himself down.

So, his mind was made. There was no going back now.

The south-east foundation of the property sat dormant, but grand; the blueprints had already been drafted and finalized by the time he had put the mantle of Batman to rest. Probably for the best. There were very few places he could store the remnants of his double life; he and Alfred had burned the paper trail, but the Batsuit, the Tumbler, and all his other gadgets were laid to rest in what was once supposed to be a sanctuary. Now, as Bruce rode the service elevator down into the depths, it didn’t feel like returning to a sanctuary—it felt like descending into Hades.

The cave below was largely unchanged, and even the foundations laid there had survived—but the new plans had improved and strengthened them. It was dead silent as he stepped into the darkness. He’d allowed the plans for the foundation to go through, but he hadn’t added lights; the Batcave, at the moment, was little more than a glorified storage unit.

He entered in a reverie, one from which he tried to wake. There was no time for this hollowness he felt right now—there was no time for memories or regrets. The sun would be rising probably within the hour, and he didn’t plan to stay around and be seen. As far as Gotham was concerned, the Batman was still gone.

He had, thankfully, stayed in shape since the last time he had worn the suit, and the weight of it was almost comforting across his shoulders and waist. He felt almost guilty at how easily he slipped into the Bat’s state of mind. He hadn’t started the Tumbler in a while, but it was a sturdy piece of equipment, and was in working order soon.

Bruce, holding the cowl in his hands, looked at the false rock wall that blocked the exit of the cave. It was time.


	2. Bottle Up and Explode!

His first priority was the hostages, although he knew that, with the Joker, things were never as they seemed.

Getting into the warehouse had been easy enough. It had just been a matter of cloaking the Tumbler a ways away and cruising past the cops on the Batpod. Police cars surrounded the building with their lights flashing and sirens blaring, but under cover of darkness, he had hidden the Batpod behind an alley dumpster and then slipped himself through one of the broken windows.

The warehouse had long since fallen into disrepair, used for various things over the years, although it was originally intended as a munitions factory during the war. Machinery from the era was still tucked away in corners, slowly being eaten away by the trials of time and sea air—rusted and abandoned. Where there weren’t machines, nondescript crates and barrels sat forgotten, empty or in disuse. Judging by the coating of dust on everything, Bruce could imagine that it had been quite some time since anyone had disturbed this decaying edifice.

Outside, police sirens wailed, red and blue lights playing off of the broken glass of the windows and refracting across the floor in coruscating prismatic patterns; over the wailing of the sirens, he could hear Jim Gordon shouting over a megaphone. _You’re surrounded, let’s proceed with negotiations, take it easy on those hostages._

Squinting, the Batman could see that there had been a disturbance in the dust and grime caked on the floor. He paused for a moment, before carefully following the tracks through the warrens of crates and barrels, past skeletal machinery and moldering tarps strewn here and there.

Eventually, he came across a room that was emptier than the rest. He entered cautiously and tried to get his bearings, glancing out one of the windows. Third floor, it looked like. Before he could get any further, he spotted something strange on the factory floor. The dynamite was unmistakable, tied with orange wire, the charges all rigged together; it was bound to a large boiler tank—not dingy and scratched like the rest of the equipment here, but new. He didn’t see a timer counting down the seconds until detonation, but considering it was the Joker’s set up, that meant nothing.

The next stairwell was mostly demolished; Bruce circled back onto the factory floor and craned his neck upward, finally finding a break in the ceiling big enough to pull himself through. He tried to gain purchase with the grapple until it caught on something, its metal teeth scraping against the cement.

As he hoisted himself up, he noticed that this floor was the only floor lit—not very well, but lit all the same. After a little searching, he came across the hostages, sat among various dingy crates and boxes, all waterlogged and sagging with age. There were five men in worn, white scrubs and hoods made of pillowcases; above their heads, fluorescent light flickered eerily, casting them in an almost sickly glow. They were sat in a circle, facing outward with their backs together, wrists bound.

Cautiously, the shade approached, his footsteps silent. Still, one of them seemed to sense him all the same; a man with pale arms, sitting crisscross, lifted his head and tilted it in Batman’s direction. There was something vaguely familiar about the man—it itched at the back of his mind, incessant, even as he knelt beside him. The man stirred as the Bat came closer and pulled the hood off.

There, under the flickering, feeble light, a familiar head lolled back—stark shadows made the man’s eyes look dark, as if ringed in greasepaint, but he wasn’t wearing his customary whiteface. Amber eyes blinked up blearily at Batman, blown pupils constricting. A smirk broke across his face, tugging at deep, poorly-healed scars on the sides of his face.

“Batss…” the man hissed through yellowed teeth, chuckling. “How nice of you to, um ... come to our rescue. _My hero_.”

He should have known. Why the Joker had tied himself up like this with other hostages made little sense to him—but, then again, what sense was there in his particular brand of chaos? And he’d tried the hostage trick before, as Bruce recalled.

The Bat grabbed the clown by the front of his scrubs, pulling him forwards. “What’s your game?” His voice was all but a growl, and after so long not using his voice, it ached.

“My _game_?” Joker scoffed and looked around incredulously, as if mightily unimpressed by the Batman’s rude accusation. “Well, geez … now, what would make you think I had anything to do with this? I’m just along for the _ride_.”

The Joker looked the worse for wear, besides absence of makeup. Batman had only seen his bare forearms on one other occasion, and he didn’t recall there being so many scars and bite marks; without the black greasepaint smeared around his eyes, dark circles stood out; and … he was much thinner than he had been a year ago.

“Are the charges rigged?” the Bat demanded, tightening his grip on the Joker’s scrubs.

Again, the clown scoffed, raising his brows in disbelief. His hands squirmed behind him. “I don’t _know_. In fact, I know _less_ about what’s going on than you do.” Snickering, he added, “For once.”

Batman snarled, relinquishing his grip on his old foe, who toppled back against the other hostages with a strange giggle. He almost seemed to egg the others on without evening saying anything; they were beginning to squirm in their bonds, some shaking their heads in a desperate attempt to de-hood themselves.

Bruce was almost tempted to leave him there despite the explosives. Joker wouldn’t have a chance … just like he hadn’t given Rachel a chance. He gritted his teeth and pushed the thought out of his mind, though—that thinking was what separated him from Dent. That was what had pushed Harvey over the edge. And that had been the Joker’s fault, too.

He tempered his next reaction and swallowed his anger like a bitter pill. He knelt beside the smirking man, nodding toward the other so-called hostages. “Friends of yours?”

The Joker glanced behind him, gnawing on the inside of a scarred cheek, and shrugged. “Who knows? Aren’t I friends with everybody?”

Bruce’s veneer of calm didn’t last long. “I don’t have _time_ for your games.” His voice was a dangerous rumble, all clenched teeth and veiled threat.

The clown’s shoulders postured in such a way that, were his hands untied, he’d have been holding them up in surrender. “Okay, okay— _yikes_. I, uh, remember passing out in my _little_ tiny cell, and then I woke up in the back of some truck. Big one, probably a semi. I got shuffled out, and, uhh ... now I’m here.” He paused, nostrils flaring, and grinned. “Seaside? I can smell it. The _old munitions factory_?”

“How do you know?”

He shrugged. “It’s what I’d’ve used. ’Course, there’s, uh, a shortage of really _good_ abandoned warehouses these days.”

Batman narrowed his eyes, mouth setting in a hard line. “Are the bombs going to go off? _When?_ ”

Joker bared his teeth and winced, head lolling to the side. “Take it easy….”

His hair fell to the side of his face, blond curls obscuring warm brown eyes. The green had long since begun to wash out, leaving only pale discoloration at the tips where it hadn’t already been cut—he looked much more human this way, more like a man one might encounter on the street—anywhere. A victim, rather than a mad villain.

The Joker watched Bruce watching him, licking his lips. “I’m surprised the _Batman_ came out of hiding just to see lil’ old _me_ ….”

“Don’t flatter yourself—”

A strange sound interrupted him before he could pursue the previous question. It sounded like a succession of small explosions similar to firecrackers; it caused a rumbling that made the entire warehouse shake, small bits of cement and white dust raining from the ceiling as the building groaned and shifted. The other hostages whimpered as they felt it, but the Joker and Batman remained quiet, simply watching the ceiling.

With some effort, the bound man maneuvered himself out of his crisscross position and stood, standing at Batman’s flank. After a moment, the noise stopped, and he glanced over, looking like he’d just tasted something bad. “What the hell was _that_?”

Bruce’s blood ran cold for a split second, remembering the dynamite below them. Outside, the commissioner's voice became more frantic over the megaphone.

Catching the look in his eyes, Joker mumbled, “Oh, _Christ_.”

The genuine realization in the clown’s voice gave him pause, and for the first time that night, he doubted whether this _was_ the Joker’s doing.

The small explosions continued in quick succession, coming from all sides of the warehouse. The ceiling rained down more cement and dust and Batman’s hand shot out, gripping the Joker’s arm in a vice. He needed to get the hostages out, regardless of whether they were criminals or not.

Joker looked over, mightily bemused, and opened his mouth to say something with his pouty, cracked lips curled upwards, eyes crinkling just slightly in the corners.

An enormous blast from just below silenced him, enough to throw them slightly off-kilter. The building shook to the foundations and the ceiling began to cave in. With one wide movement, Batman threw himself over the other man, wrestling them both to the ground with a tight grip. He needn’t have bothered; below him, the Joker clung to his Kevlar, nails digging into the soft fabric between plates, cocooned with Bruce in the dark safety of his cape. The heat of the man’s breath brushed against Bruce’s mouth; it smelled like blood and something sour. The Bat glanced to the side. Where they had once stood, the ceiling had completely collapsed, massive slabs on concrete stirring up dust and asbestos as grim reminders.

A strange, bitter scent filled the air, acrid fumes seeping through the cracks in the floor and stinging at his nose. One of the support beams on the floor below crumbled and gave way, a booming sound that caused the other hostages to scream louder than they had been. Batman separated himself from Joker to get a better look at the damage, but Joker moved with him, keeping close.

"You..." the Joker began, marveling at the Bat as they moved together through the ruins. He fell silent.

The room was now tilted at a strange angle, lending the scene an even more alien appearance. The florescent lights had cut out with the explosion, plunging them into darkness. The only source of light was thin and grey, filtering through the boarded-up windows. Slowly, a thick, almost pearlescent white fog unfurled from the crumbling hole that had been made in the floor. It crept along, surrounding the hostages and licking the Joker and Batman’s heels, rising languidly and curling around them, ever-thick as it began to fill the entire warehouse.

As the fog continued to permeate the air, Batman disengaged an instrument from his belt and slipped it over his mouth. It was trapezoidal in shape, wide at the top, and covered the exposed skin there—a gas mask, one Mr. Fox had drafted after his run-ins with Scarecrow.

Joker, on the other hand, was out of luck; following the Bat’s lead, he tried to nose his way into the collar of his shirt. “A _little_ help, here? Whatever that is, I, uh, don’t want to inhale it.”

The Bat considered for a moment, glaring down at the hunched man, whose face was practically nestled into his breastplate. If he had truly been spirited away from Arkham in nothing but his scrubs, he wouldn’t be able to put up a fight. The time in the hospital had clearly worn on him—where his forearms at once been thick with lithe muscle definition, bones now protruded beneath sallow skin, blue veins showing through. If the Joker tried to rush him face to face like this, Bruce would have little trouble overpowering him. Hesitating for a moment, he released one of his throwing knives and proceeded to cut the other man free.

With a thankful grunt, Joker pulled the collar of his shirt up over his nose and mouth, pressing down hard with one hand. He glanced over at the Bat again, blond brows raised. “Not _my_ charges, not my gas, buddy,” he said with a muffled snort.

Bruce didn’t stay to reply; he only narrowed his eyes at the blond before making his way towards the ruined staircase. There was no way the Joker would be able to escape the building now—with the sun beginning to rise and the GCPD surrounding the building, he wouldn’t stand a chance. Which, Bruce thought grimly, would make it difficult for _him_ to escape as well. There was only so much the commissioner could do for him.

The lower level of the building was worse—pearlescent gas filled the room, enough to obscure his vision. As he approached the remains of the big boiler, he could see that not only had the explosion punctured its metal shell, but the pressure from within had made the damage to the surrounding area more severe. Shrapnel laid strewn about, singed, among the rubble of what had once been half the fourth floor.

He waved away the smoke and knelt nearby once he was sure all the pressure had been released—he didn’t plan on surviving all his encounters at Batman just to be impaled by shrapnel. From his belt, he drew another instrument; it was a handheld device and looked much like a retail scanner, albeit sleeker. It wouldn’t give him a perfect result, but he should be able to get a reading on what the gas was and some of its ingredients.

Carefully, he leaned forward in the ever-tumbling gas cloud and ran the scanner along the exposed belly of the boiler tank. He waited … and then it beeped in the affirmative, signaling that it had found a known substance. _Strange_ , he thought. _I’ve never seen something like this before._

He drew back and squinted at the scanner’s screen, the only light source in the thick fog. _Formula identified_ , it said. _Best match: “Fear Toxin,” sample taken 2005. Compound match: Norepinephrine inhibitors, phencyclidine, lysergic acid._

Crane’s fear gas? But how was that even possible? The fog had already engulfed the hostages fully, not to mention the Joker—and, if anything, they seemed _calmer_ than they had before the explosion. The screams from the hostages had long since died down—the only sound now was that of the ever-present murmur of police.

“Tsk, tsk. Naughty Johnny,” said a voice over his shoulder, making him jump violently.

When he turned his head, he saw that familiar marred smile; the Joker was leaning over his shoulder, pupils blown wide. The gas was clearly having some effect on him—what, exactly, Bruce couldn’t determine. He saw only that he stood slightly off kilter, blinking slowly. How the man had managed to sneak up on him in such a state was a mystery in itself. It would have been easy for the Joker to come upon him and spring an attack, Bruce realized, if he had been determined. It was unlike him to be so subdued. Slowly, the Joker extended a hand and brushed his fingertips against the Bat’s shoulder, almost purring.

Batman jerked away and saved the scanner’s reading, promptly tucking the device back into his belt. Something was very wrong. He needed to get out soon—overhead, he could hear the whoosh of helicopter blades and orders being shouted. Just as he was about to make for a way out, he heard a soft groan from behind him as the Joker’s body suddenly collapsed against his, boneless, with arms slung around his shoulders. Instinctively, he caught him—just as the sound of a metal door being knocked in echoed through the building. _Out of time_.

There was no option other than to flee. He hefted the Joker into his arms, looking for the nearest exit. The gas swirled around him as he waded through it, making it impossible to see. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as masked men began to emerge from the fog, assault weapons in hand. He darted behind a stack of boxes before they could notice him, the Joker’s limp body making it difficult to move quickly. Behind him, the men shouted orders to one another, dispersing in the mist.

Most definitely SWAT. _Shit_. If he were caught, there would be few questions—he was wanted, after all … and the man now unconscious in his arms was arguably _more_ wanted. If he were to be caught with the Joker, like this … well. Not even the commissioner would be able to help them. They would be captured, and all the media speculation about their connection would be, by their accounts, proven.

Batman slipped through the fog, from cluster to cluster of crates, scoping out exits. Eventually, he slipped into a back corridor which had huge windows looking out onto the steel yard. The windows were all broken now, forming a sort of veranda; the outer parapet had crumbled, leaving a space big enough for him to slip through. He rappelled down with the Joker over his shoulder.

The sun had finally begun to rise over the harbor, golden light breaking through clouds and filtering through the fumes that now escaped the building. He was astonished at how _much_ of the fog there was. It would have been beautiful had he not been running from the police.

He set the unconscious Joker down against the fence of the steel yard. There was a gate nearby, chained up to keep out vagrants and taggers, but the lock and chain were old and easy to break. He turned and hoisted the other man over one shoulder and disappeared, using what little shadow he had left to dodge the police and make it to the Batpod. Most of the men were fixated on the smoking building now, and no one noticed as he dodged through the scant shadows cast by the warehouse. His next stop would have to be Arkham—he had little choice in that, even if something turned in his stomach, thinking of returning even the _Joker_ in such a state.

He looked around the alley in which he’d hidden the Batpod, distracted as he tried to maneuver himself onto it with the limp body. He felt a chill, and somehow knew what was about to happen without the ability to react physically. Without even a twitch of warning, the Joker suddenly sprang to life and slipped through his arms as if he’d never been there at all, like a ghost. Before the Batman could seize him by the lithe waist again, the clown dodged away, cackling.

“Catch you on the _flip-side_ , handsome,” he said with a casual mock-salute. He pivoted and ran headlong down the dingy alley, grime sticking to the bottoms of his bare feet. Whooping laughter echoed off the brick and metal walls of surrounding buildings, drawing the attention of the police. Without a moment’s hesitation, Joker scaled the wire fence at the edge of the harbor and flung himself into the water.

The splash was sickeningly loud, and Bruce winced at the prospect of jumping into the freezing harbor in November—and with bare feet and arms. Thinking about it, he could nearly feel the breath being knocked out of him. There was no time to worry about it, though—police were already swarming the docks with weapons drawn, and it was only a matter of time until they spotted the black-clad figure standing alone in the alley.

For a split second, he hesitated, before mounting the Batpod and taking off between the police cruisers, cape flapping behind him.


	3. Bitter Pill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait :) I edited little bits and pieces of chapter two; just added a few lines. Enjoy!

_Arms slowly encircled his torso; hair brushed against his cheek. Bruce sighed contentedly, reaching up around his bed partner and gently running his fingers through the curly tresses—her hair was shorter than he remembered, but then again, it had been so long. She giggled, kissing him on the nose—her lips were warm, soft._

_“I missed you…” he murmured, brushing their noses together and chuckling softly to himself. He couldn’t remember ever being so happy—not in a long time._

_Beside him, his lover shifted, her arms moving up to wrap around the back of his neck. Thumbs pressed into tensed flesh, loosening kinks he hadn’t known were there. “I missed you more, sugar.”_

_The voice was familiar; out of place, here. Still, the gentle ministrations kept him from thinking too deeply on it, lulled him into a sense of ease—he exhaled through his nose, letting tension drain out of his shoulders._

_“There’s a good boy.”_

_He hummed happily, pulling her closer for a kiss—and was overwhelmed with the scent of blood and sourness. The scent of someone left too long to rot in darkness._

_Not Rachel. Not anyone else. A strange, shrill beeping filled the air._

_“Somethin’ wrong, doll-face?”_

_Joker—? There was a—_

 

Bruce’s eyes flew open, only to screw back shut as they were assaulted by the glowing blue light of the monitor before him. _Analysis Complete_ , it said, accompanied by the beeping. He groaned, and pressed enter before the noise could give him a migraine.

Rubbing his eyes as he sat up, Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose—the Joker’s face was still freshly burned into his mind, the feeling of soft, chapped lips against his lingering. He’d been thinking too much—since that morning at the warehouse, the dreams had almost been recurrent. It seemed his adversaries hounded him even in sleep. He should have gone after him. Because of him covering his own ass, the Joker was loose again, and would probably be back to his old _antics_ in short order.

Before he could dwell on it any longer, he groped around in the darkness of the cave—the “Batcave,” he’d taken to calling it in his head—to turn on the second screen at his left hand, turning on the nightly news and letting it drown out his thoughts before he looked back to the computer’s analysis.

He scrolled through the list of compounds, rubbing his forehead roughly to try and stay awake. The initial scan he’d done at the scene had only grabbed the compound with the closest possible match—here, with the proper equipment, he’d have more luck.

Some of the chemicals were highlighted, and there were enough in common with Scarecrow’s fear toxin to raise Bruce’s suspicion. _Norepinephrine stimulation inhibitors, nitrous oxide, phencyclidine,_ _lysergic acid, benzodiazepine…._ He had a vague idea of what most of them did on their own, and knew how they interacted in _Crane’s_ toxin—but _nitrous oxide_ , laughing gas? This fog had been something different. It had to be. The way the prisoners had been lulled into comfortable silence, the subdued way the Joker had leaned into him and spoken…. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fear toxin.

 _Query:Scanforreaction_biological_humanmale,_ he typed, and then leaned back in his chair to rub his eyes again. The computer would devise a scenario in which a human interacted with the specific compound, and then Bruce could get a better look at the effects.

In the meantime, however, he turned his attentions back to the late-night Gotham news station. The thoughts he had tried to push away began to creep back in, pieces of his nightmare returning to him. Why, of all people, had it been the Joker lying beside him? Surely, it made more sense for him to dream of Rachel. The date of her death was coming up once more, the first grim anniversary he would have to suffer through—and almost one year since the Joker had been put away. For him to be at large once more seemed hardly a coincidence, and if he were truly behind any of this, Bruce could only imagine the havoc he’d would wreak on the city this time.

As if in reply to his train of thought, the nightly news switched topics, grabbing his attention. The footage captured earlier that week looped on the screen as a barely-audible report was given—suspects, reports of damages and who was apprehended. A mugshot of a smug-looking man in greasepaint flashed across the screen.

There was the other question: why hadn’t the Joker taken the perfect opportunity to attack him? His defenses had been down, he was out of practice—even in just the intermittent year, his body, which had been so used to rigorous exercise, had begun to thin and wane, regardless of his regimen. Despite his greatest efforts to ignore it, despite the fact that the Batsuit still technically fit, he couldn't deny that. It wouldn’t have been difficult for Joker to overtake him, especially when his back had been turned-- _especially_ with the Bat caught off guard by his bout of “unconsciousness.” How easy it would have been for him to close square, strong hands around his neck, pull him closer—he could feel them now, and how he'd clung to him, moved with him through the wreckage of the factory floor....

 _Scan Complete_ , the computer said, finally, causing Bruce to jump in his seat. All stray thoughts of the Joker’s warm body against his own, clinging to him in the dark of the warehouse, were shaken from his brain, returning him to reality. He sighed heavily and hit enter, and leaned back as he watched the screen load.

Two boxes appeared; one, a flat gray environment, a crude sketch of a human figure made of blue and red lines within it, as well as a timer counting the seconds from exposure; the second was a long, rectangular box, inside of which words joined a list—side-effects in real-time, as well as the compounds as they were activated within the mock body. In real life, there would be a lot more factors than a computer could take into account—nothing was ever precise when it came to chemicals and how they reacted to a biological entity. But it would definitely give him the right idea—steer his investigation in the right direction.

The initial exposure looked familiar to him; as the phencyclidine was introduced into the system, the side-effects began to scroll: _dissociation, delusions,_ _erythema, blood shot eyes, numbness/analgesia_ … all familiar to him. He’d seen it before in Crane, and Rachel, and had even felt it himself. But as the list continued to scroll, his suspicions were confirmed, for better or worse. As the phencyclidine interacted with the nitrous oxide, euphoria and drowsiness joined the list, and the human figure on the screen slumped slightly.

After the anxiety levels drained from the body, the lysergic acid kicked in—and with it, the words _loss of ego boundaries_ appeared on the screen. The human figure looked up straighter, but still seemed listless.

Bruce paused the test, his eyes alight now with more than just confusion. He’d never heard the term described in such a way, but after a cursory search, he realized he was familiar with it. Self-surrender and transformation—ego death—had been bookend themes when he’d studied with the League of Shadows. In that context, the loss of ego meant going through an experience that would grant complete transcendence of self, and thus true power—being at one with the universe. Here, he realized as he worked, the end goal was much more sinister: not to become at one with the universe, but rather to placate, to silence—essentially, to leave someone open for influence; a hollow shell, a zombie. Such a person, once calm, could be convinced to do anything. And with norepinephrine inhibitors and PCP in the concoction, that could definitely extend to violence—even the most unspeakable things.

Bruce fingered the keyboard as he thought his over, a little struck at the sudden seriousness of it. Crane—it had to be Crane—had somehow twisted the toxin’s seminal formula, and though he hadn’t perfected it, he was aiming to make mind-controlling gas.

The thoughts roiling in him now were enough to make anyone ill. Slowly, he turned back to the second screen, hoping for some kind of distraction. He wasn’t surprised to see Hugo Strange there, being interviewed by yet another news outlet—not GCN, this time, but some national agency. Bruce hadn’t been paying too much attention to it, and he mostly just kept the television on to keep crippling loneliness at bay, but it was hard not to notice that Professor Strange was making the rounds. Maybe he had something to prove. Or maybe he really _did_ just want to change the world—like Harvey had.

He was surprised, however, to see Arnold Wesker there; a meek, timid man, dressed in a dark suit and a bowtie, with thinning white hair and glasses. The Bat had never clashed with him, but he’d seen his name and mugshot among the archives at Arkham. Quickly, Bruce switched screens and pulled up his file out of curiosity. It was, indeed, the same worn face staring back at him.

_“And how long have you been in Professor Strange’s care, Mr. Wesker?”_

Wesker didn’t look keen on answering, his face forlorn and his voice quiet and shy. _“I’ve been, er, r-receiving treatment with him for about two years. I suffered some injuries in a-a riot, a-and he volunteered to help us at Arkham. Arkham Asylum, in Gotham.”_

 _“We came up with the idea for my rest home together, actually,”_ Strange said, smiling humbly.

 _“What exactly is your condition, Mr. Wesker?”_ one of the anchors asked. There were two; a middle-aged man and a young woman with a brunette pixie cut.

 _“I have a dissociative identity disorder—er, had. I would … a-act out violence with a separate personality, sometimes in a fugue state, and other times just not being able to control myself. I worked with the mob for some time, but ultimately, they let me go and I was eventually sent to Arkham.”_ He looked down at his lap, fidgeting.

 _“Would you say you’re cured?”_ the female anchor asked with a plastic smile.

Wesker looked up and nodded calmly. _“Professor Strange worked magic for me. I’ve never felt so … clear-headed, and sure of my direction. Now, I’m in the-the nonviolent wing of Arkham, a-and they’re thinking of making me an outpatient soon.”_

The male anchor glanced at Professor Strange and caught his disapproving look, and asked, _“And treatment at Arkham didn’t go well?”_

This time, Strange answered: _“Arkham is a shameful excuse for a mental health institution. It is little more than a prison, or a zoo.”_

_“Couldn’t the criminally insane be taken to your rest home instead, Professor Strange?”_

He laughed a little, raising a hand. _“Oh, no. My facility is far too small right now, and resembles more of a hospice—one on one treatment, only about sixty patients at any given time, and we, unfortunately, don’t have the funds to branch into mental health. There is this stigma of taking criminals in for treatment of physical ailments; it’s a shame, but many prisons and facilities forego it entirely. Arkham, in particular, may once have been equipped to properly treat physical ailments, but it’s falling to pieces now. And their archaic beliefs were never fit to treat ailments of the mind.”_

 _“Would you agree with that statement, Mr. Wesker?”_ the woman asked.

Wesker just nodded.

_“And what do you think could be done to make things better in Gotham City?”_

He glanced between the anchors and Strange, then smiled. _“Well, the professor hates it when I say this, but he’s done so well with his rest home, made gr-great strides. I think if he were to become the Chief Psychologist at Arkham, too, some real change could occur—finally. I re-really do. He has the right ideas.”_

Bruce gnawed on the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. Everything Wesker was saying checked out—and the look on the professor’s face … there was no faking that. It was the same pride and hope that he’d seen a thousand times before on Harvey Dent’s face.

“Planning on having any supper, sir?” Alfred’s voice rang through the shell of the new Batcave, ringing eerily through the place. Bruce was pulled from his reverie, starting slightly at the butler’s sudden appearance. “I went to all the trouble of making you something; you ought to eat. Unless you fancy starving to bones down here.”  

“No—no, I’ll be coming up right away.” A quick keystroke had the second screen off, while the results on the first screen remained. Bruce straightened in his seat, stretching joints that had been still for far too long. A sickly popping followed, garnering a quizzical look from Alfred.

“You’re not planning on going _out_ tonight, are you?” Dual meaning weighted his words; for a moment, it gave Bruce pause.

Turning his gaze back to the screen, he began, “Actually … I think I do have a bit of a date later tonight ... after dinner.”

“And where might that be, Master Wayne?”

The man in question narrowed his eyes, expression taking on a long-lost intensity. “Arkham.”

 

# ♣♣♣

 

The long, dank tunnels that snaked under Arkham sprawled out in every which direction, like the veins of a great beast, pumping its vile blood. The Batman slipped through them with ease—the fluorescent lighting was shoddy at best in most places, and completely dark in others, due to disuse. Once upon a time, before the innovation of shuttle buses, they had been the only way to transport much-needed supplies from one ward to another, especially during the winter months. Now, they were hardly needed, used only in emergencies, and slowly moldering away as time wore on.

Slipping into and out of Arkham was not nearly as difficult as one might think—the only place where he would face any real difficulty would be managing to get into the maximum security ward unnoticed. Even that, however, would pose limited threat. A misplaced ID here, the right turn of the head there, and the right amount of stealth allowed him entrance.

He’d only visited it a few times, but as he understood it, maximum security was little more than a prison and housed only the most violent, criminally insane individuals in Gotham. Most of them were people the Bat had had encounters with before; the Joker had been held here, as well as serial killers, inmates who had murdered people inside Arkham ... people who couldn’t be trusted around the other patients. And, of course, Jonathan Crane.

The last Bruce had heard, they’d locked Crane up in a padded cell and thrown away the key—both because he antagonized the other inmates and because he was in danger, himself, of being attacked by those who had been victimized by him when he’d run the place. It wasn’t likely that he was leaving and coming back to Arkham, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t orchestrating everything from his little prison.

As Batman slunk through the tunnels, Alfred fed him information through his earpiece: “I’m seeing here that Crane has been confined to a ‘supermax’ cell for quite some time, sir. He was sent there after apparently whispering to other patients while they tried to sleep … whatever he was whispering, it apparently sent quite a few of them into a frenzy.”

He and Alfred had discussed the supermax cells beforehand—some criminals, those labelled threats to national and international security, got not only a padded cell to themselves, but an entire hallway … and, in some cases, even an entire floor. They were lit and monitored 24/7 by federal agents _and_ Arkham security. There was little chance of Crane ever escaping.

Then again, that was what everyone had said about the Joker.

“How are the ways in and out looking?”

“Clear for now, sir.” He could hear Alfred flicking through the security feeds which they’d had bugged for a while now, ever since Scarecrow had become a player. “I only see two guards on Crane’s floor. Cor, you’d think they’d assign more armed men to a blessed maximum security wing.”

“No one sponsors Arkham after what happened. They hire just enough to keep them in line. Which works well enough for them … they’re not exactly focused on their safety or well-being.”

“’course, the Joker got loose anyway.”

The Bat was silent. The Joker _was_ gone, but he wasn’t sure anymore that it had been _his_ plan. At least, not entirely. Now, god knew where the man had gone off to—or if he had even made it out alive. The water of the bay was arctic-cold, even as early as November. He tried to swallow the guilt that began to bubble up as he turned onto another landing, slipping unnoticed through service passageways.

Eventually, he came to a maintenance door leading up out of the tunnels and into the asylum proper; from there, he’d have to make his way through to maximum security and then to the designated supermax area.

“Shall I see what can be done about the security cameras, sir?”

The Bat thought about it for a moment as he moved to take down the guard patrolling in front of the maintenance door. Once the man was unconscious, he said, “I just need to buy enough time to talk to Crane. If you take out too many cameras, they’ll know something is headed their way. Just tell me how to avoid them.”

He stayed silent as Alfred walked him through the path to the supermax floor. Where he felt he could risk it, he broke lights and disabled cameras. Crane’s cell would be another problem altogether—once he disabled the camera there, he’d have only a limited amount of time before the Feds came to fix it. He would need to be in and out quickly. It was doable, but exhausting—he had never appreciated or longed for the GCPD’s help like he did now.

The Bat left a trail of armored guards behind him, clearing out the floor, and finally found the cell. The door was unlocked elsewhere, operated electrically. He had a gadget for that; on the heavy-duty lock, something Fox had called a _pulse-picker_ worked its magic; using an electro-magnetic pulse, it sent a false signal for the door to open. Soon enough, Batman was inside the darkened cell, the door closed behind him.

It was completely silent for a few moments.

Then, there came a shaky little sigh from one of the corners, and a soft voice croaked into the blackness, “I know you’re there….”

He might have jumped, had he not heard the gentle rustle of clothes—the way the dark shifted ever-so-slightly.

“Of course they wouldn’t be able to keep you out, Batman.” He could hear the smile in the man’s voice, and as the Bat moved closer in the dark, the night vision in his goggles kicked in.

The man sitting before him was a shadow of Jonathan Crane—his face was thin, sallow, and unshaven, his eyes an eerie, glowing white in the saturated blue-green of the night vision. He was bound tightly in a straitjacket, feet bare, long legs drawn up near his shoulders. The sight was jarring for a moment—like something out of a horror movie—but the emotion never reached Batman’s face.

“If you took the time to come see me without making an appointment, it must be something important,” the wraith said, shuffling further into the corner, retreating into his straitjacket with a smug grin. He wouldn’t be so smug for long. Very few things still made Crane uncomfortable—but darkness was one of them. The Bat planned to use that to his advantage. He could only hope Crane would stay focused and calm long enough to talk about the explosion, the warehouse, the Joker … and whatever this fog was.

“Been here long, Crane?”

The man scoffed, laughing weakly, and turned his face away. “You should know. You’re the one who put me in here….” The way he shifted seemed unnatural in the night-vision, grainy arms and legs pulled all about him like a cornered spider. Bruce stifled a shudder.

“Don’t play games with me.” As he stepped closer still, the bound man curled further in on himself, almost looking like he was suppressing a giggle. “Where have you been, Crane?”

“I’ve been sitting … right here … _rotting_ for the past year and a half,” he drawled. His half-lidded eyes widened desperately in the darkness, then, as though it would help him see better.

In one quick movement, the Bat was upon him, gripping at the front of his straitjacket. Bare feet kicked open air; a hoarse whine escaped the man’s lips as he was hefted up.

“Then there’s a conspirator, someone taking orders. Who is he?” His voice took on an eerie quality in the stifling silence of the cell.

Crane blinked rapidly, as if trying to focus. With a hurried breath and a snarl, he said, “What are you talking about? What orders!”

“The charges with the escaped prisoners. Barrels full of _your_ toxin,” Batman’s fists tightened, bunching in the coarse fabric of the jacket. “Who’s setting them off? Where is he?” It was an odd echo of that night in the basement of the same building—the same night the city had nearly been torn apart by the fear toxin; the same night Rachel had nearly died. He pushed the thoughts from his mind—now was not the time to remember things like that, her….

A spark of understanding came to Crane’s eyes, and he chuckled, exhaling sharply through his nose. “That isn’t me. That’s not me. You think—you think I could, from here? Do you think anyone would take orders from me anymore?” His crystal clear eyes were wide now, equal parts filled with glee and terror. He looked as though he might cry, though he still grinned smugly as though he had played a particularly good joke on an old friend.

The Bat’s grip only loosened slightly, causing Crane to slump against the padded wall. If not him, who could it be? It didn’t seem like the Joker, no—not nearly enough death involved, and he didn’t seem the type to create an army of zombies to control. Whoever it was, they wanted attention and power—they wanted the Batman.

“Who’s responsible for this?”

Crane leaned heavily against the wall, thankful to be out of Batman’s reach, though it had clearly exhilarated him—he was worked up, now, and it was evident in his face. His eyes shined and his nostrils flared. “What makes you think I would know something like that, Batman? We don’t get word from the other side here… not here,” he rasped. After a moment of dark silence, though, he tossed his head to the side and added, “Although ... I’ve been getting a pleasing influx of visitors lately. I can’t stand being idle… and the Feds don’t make great conversationalists.”

That piqued his interest. That would be the first piece—in order for someone to get Crane’s toxin, they would have needed to pry it from Crane himself. It was the man’s only ace in the hole, his only bargaining chip in an unsympathetic hell of a prison. Not something he would part with easily. “What kind of visitors?”

The wraith smiled genuinely for the first time—almost proudly, like a master making a breakthrough with a student. “Now you’re asking the right questions.”

“Who do you—”

Alfred’s voice was in his ears before he could finish the question. “Sir, incoming security.”

Sure enough, the click of shoes against the bare stone tile echoed down the hall, signaling their approach. His adrenaline leaped as he reached into his pocket and signaled the pulse-picker to jam the lock, this time closing them both in.

The sound of metal squealing as the door struggled to open made Crane jump, and his teeth began to chatter as Batman closed in on him once again. His eyes darted and he shook—they were both running out of time.

“Who has the formula? Why are they trafficking criminals out of Arkham?”

“He’s calling you out, Batman,” the mad doctor managed, laughing humorlessly. “You should be more observant. Everybody wants your hide for one reason or another. That _hack_ —that thief—is no different….”

“So why smuggle lunatics out of Arkham?”

His question went unanswered—the door was being forced. He left Crane entirely, slipping into a corner of his own.

The wraith sensed it, and snarled. “He’s a thief. And I don’t give information away for free. Don’t walk away from me….”

Within moment, two armed guards and a security agent finally broke through into the dark room, scanning each wall and corner with flashlights and shouting for Crane to stay on the ground. Besides him and his meager furnishings, it was empty.

 

# ♣♣♣

 

 Digging for details took well into the next day, and eventually, evening. Notes had slowly begun to cramp Bruce’s desk in the Batcave, collected neatly into piles or otherwise tossed aside in wads. Each time a new lead seemed to get somewhere, another factor would limit it; and with each passing hour, it became clearer that despite the familiar makeup of the toxin, there was an entirely new player on the field—someone not necessarily linked directly to Crane, but certainly enough to keep him suspicious of Scarecrow.

Now, as the hour grew later, Bruce’s lids were beginning to droop, his head dropping every few minutes as slumber threatened to overtake him. In the background, GCN droned on, carrying on about news and sports both local and national, the day’s top stories, and weather reports. Just as the program was drawing to an end, an announcement flashed across the screen, catching his attention immediately with the “breaking news” jingle. A moment later, grainy footage of a familiar highway was displayed, shaky and grey in the failing light of the day. Bruce sighed as the picture came into focus, scrubbing his face.

_“It’s speculated that this is indeed a message from the Joker, who is still at large after an escape from Arkham and a hostage situation that took place earlier this week. It’s unclear at this time whether this is a threat against GCN or if this is some kind of hoax.”_

There, above the 129 Route leading out of Gotham, someone had defaced an ad featuring Rebecca Leibowitz, reporter and hostess of _Good Morning Gotham_ ; where before she had been her typical, sunny, brunette self, she was now painted with heavy black rings around her eyes and a sketchy red grin.

 _Dammit_. He should have jumped in after him, despite the police—he should have done something, and couldn’t help but feel, now, that he’d been a coward. At the very least, the Joker’s fate was now clear—the clown had survived the dive. An odd sense of relief washed over him, briefly, before he noticed the strange message left in the news ticker as it scrolled on the lower third of the screen.

 

**THINKING OF U BM (O; HA HA HA -J**

 

BM … J. Joker? But surely the ticker was controlled from within the studio….

The moment he realized what that meant, as if on cue, gunshots rang through, interrupting the anchor.


End file.
